SBOS receives $350,000 grant from Rockefeller Foundation

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Claremont Graduate University’s School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences (SBOS) has received a $350,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. CGU will partner with the foundation to improve its ability to evaluate the effectiveness of programs that aid poor and disenfranchised people throughout the developing world.

Stewart Donaldson, Tarek Azzam, Claremont Graduate University

Donaldson and Azzam

For the last two years, SBOS Dean Stewart Donaldson and Professor Tarek Azzam have worked with teams of students on related projects for the foundation. This new grant will dramatically enhance the impact of their work over the next 12 months.

“This is a huge step forward in expanding CGU’s influence on improving human service organizations in Africa and Asia, and toward improving the quality of life of those living in poverty in the developing world” Donaldson said.

The Rockefeller Foundation awards millions of dollars in grants each year to organizations that strive to promote the well being of people across the globe.

Foundation initiatives include efforts to mobilize an agricultural revolution in sub-Saharan Africa, ensure access to affordable and high-quality health systems in developing countries, and develop strategies and services that help vulnerable communities cope with the impacts of climate change.

The foundation strives to do more than throw money at complex problems. It also wants to ensure that the charities and organizations it funds are as effective as possible in carrying out their work.

That’s where the partnership with SBOS comes in.

CGU’s School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences is the top training institution for organizational evaluation scholars and practitioners, and SBOS faculty members have years of experience conducting evaluations in a broad range of settings.

Donaldson, Azzam, and SBOS students will leverage that expertise to provide evaluation training and training programs for Rockefeller staff and grantees. That training will come in the form of webinars, online training, regional clinics, advisory services, and publications.

Among those publications will be a book by Donaldson and Azzam tentatively titled “Good Practices in Development Evaluation.”

CGU will collaborate on the project with UNICEF, the International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation, DevInfo, a network of international NGOs, and a wide range of developing country institutions.

“This is another example of excellence at CGU,” university President Deborah Freund said. “Our professors and students are taking education beyond the classroom and making a difference in the world.”

About the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences  

Since the late 1960s, the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University has been a leader in providing graduate education in applied psychology and evaluation science, and in preparing students to meet the challenges of an increasingly diverse and global community. Many of the school’s 1,200 alumni hold major positions in business, consulting, government, health care, public health, community settings, research institutes and think tanks, and at colleges and major universities across the globe.

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